Academic Achievements

Snowy Mountains Grammar School has a history of performing robustly in rigorous academic tests in the Senior School.

Our Year 7 and Year 9 students participate in NAPLAN annually, while our Year 7 to Year 10 students all participate in ICAS (University of New South Wales) tests along with those with relevant electives in Years 11 and 12, with detailed results including analysis available for both teachers and parents. Internally, students complete a number of standardised external tests with benchmarking to assist our teaching staff to be better informed of the current performances of students across a range of curriculum competencies providing useful data.

We are data-considerate, not data-driven, and it serves to inform our curriculum design, review and implementation in the classroom.

While we support our students sitting NAPLAN, ICAS and some other tests to help us to know our students even better, which also enables transparency, we caution parents to keep these results in perspective. They are a narrow snapshot of current achievement that makes up a small amount of any individual student’s capabilities at a particular moment in time, and therefore too much importance should not be placed on such results. Any good school is so much more than a set of results taken at a particular point in the year and it is important to look beyond these results at a myriad of other practices. We also strongly support a Growth Mindset (i.e. the work of Carol Dweck) which espouses that intelligence is not fixed and can achieve growth over time under the right conditions and beliefs. Further, we also acknowledge and support the Multiple Intelligences theory (i.e. Howard Gardner) which recognises that all individuals have multiple different talents and capabilities that go well beyond intellectual intelligence and it is our role to enable and nurture these too, so that every child flourishes to the best of their own individual capabilities.

The vast majority of students graduating from Year 12 gain an offer to study at a recognised university or vocational institution. Typically, around 8 out of 10 students at SMGS receive a university offer, with others pursuing vocational pathways, traineeships or direct employment.